Beau Lamarre-Condon’s police colleague broke down in court as she described the moment he allegedly arrived at her home, took a bucket and began scrubbing blood from a rental van.
The former senior constable, identified for legal reasons as Fiona Rosso, told the court her work with NSW Police had contributed to chronic depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and alcoholism.
Ms Rosso said Lamarre-Condon knew about her mental health difficulties when he allegedly visited her home to “say goodbye” on February 22, 2024—three days after the alleged murders.
She said his arrival in the darkness frightened her. Lamarre-Condon was crying and told her he wanted to see her because he was saying farewell to the people he loved.
Believing he might take his own life, Ms Rosso invited him inside. She said she was then surprised when his behaviour suddenly changed.
“He said, ‘I’ve done something bad, I don’t want to tell you, I don’t want to incriminate you,’” she told the court.
Lamarre-Condon asked whether she had been following the news, but Ms Rosso said she had not because of her work-related depression. He then asked her to search Jesse Baird’s name online.
Ms Rosso said the search produced several reports about the disappearance of Baird and his new partner, Luke Davies, who are pictured together.
“And he’s asking, ‘Can you look up schizophrenia? What’s the definition?’ So I typed it in and I guess I read out the definition, and he said, ‘Can someone with schizophrenia be charged?’” she said.
“And I’m like, ‘I don’t know, man,’ and he started talking about an out-of-body experience and having no control … He kept going on about this out-of-body experience.”
Ms Rosso told the court she tried to remain composed because she did not know what had occurred.
When Lamarre-Condon asked to clean her car, she refused. Later, when her partner called at about 9.30pm, she said Lamarre-Condon filled a bucket with water and went outside.
She said she did not tell her partner that something was wrong because Lamarre-Condon was still at the property.
Ms Rosso said she followed him outside and saw a white van parked near her home. The rear door was raised, blocking her view of the number plate, she told the court.
During that part of her evidence, Ms Rosso became so distressed that she struggled to regain her composure.
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“I walked out there with my drink and sat on the gutter, and he scrubbed and I sat there in the gutter,” she told the court.
“And I don’t know if it was on the other side that he saw a bit of blood to scrub off and he couldn’t get it off, so he’d have to paint it.”
Ms Rosso said she did not look inside the van. She also struggled to stay calm when a neighbour came outside to investigate the disturbance.
To protect herself, she told the neighbour, “my mate’s just cleaning his van,” the court heard.
After returning indoors, she searched Baird’s name again and discovered that a police officer had been identified as a suspect.
‘When reading the articles I saw [the number for] Crime Stoppers and I just wanted to scream, “He’s here! He’s here!”,’ she told the court.
Ms Rosso told the court Lamarre-Condon was using her phone to make calls because his own phone was in flight mode and had no reception.
She said Lamarre-Condon allegedly told her that he drove 2.5 hours to a farm with ‘a girl’ to dispose of the bodies.
‘They tried to get rid of the bodies and sink them, he said they wouldn’t sink and [the girl] said, “I can’t do this, take me back”, so they drove 2.5 hours back,’ she told the court.
Ms Rosso said Lamarre-Condon told her about one occasion when he was at Baird’s house, showing him his police-issued gun.
‘Jesse accidentally let off a round, it went into the wall, they both tried to get the bullet out, or he had to go back and patch it out, and I was like, “Oh my God, you’re basically telling me you’ve just killed Jesse”,’ she told the court.
She said Lamarre-Condon ended up sleeping on one end of her couch while she slept on the other.
The following morning, she had a medical assessment and her alarm went off at 4.30am.
When the alarm went off, Lamarre-Condon woke up, had a shower, called his aunt and uncle, and ran out the door.